Velar ejective fricative

The velar ejective fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨xʼ⟩.

Features

Features of the velar ejective fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.

• Its place of articulation is velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the soft palate.

• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.

• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.

• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Tlingit		xʼáaxʼ	[xʼáːxʼ]	'apple'

See also

• List of phonetic topics